The impact of comprehensive tariff reductions in multilateral trade: further results from computable general equilibrium simulations

Despite their welfare-improving properties, negotiations on tariff reductions remain a highly contentious issue. Using the GTAP general equilibrium approach, this paper identifies potential winners and losers from partial removal of remaining tariffs in disaggregated sectors. By considering alternative approaches to further liberalising trade in three broadly defined sectors (agriculture, textiles and manufacturing), the paper establishes empirically the clear superiority of a comprehensive trade reform package which encompasses all sectors and geographic regions. Trade negotiators at the currently deadlocked Doha Round should take note of this result as a possible means of breaking the impasse.tariffs, CGE model, Doha Round

A ROAD AHEAD FROM CANCUN? WEIGHING UP SOME GIVE-AND-TAKE SCENARIOS IN A DDA SPIRIT

Given that around 20 percent of the members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are identified as least developed countries (LDC's), global trade negotiations, resumed after the Cancun fiasco of September 2003, must address some major development issues in the spirit of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA), if they are to make any headway. This will, predictably, involve some sensible give-and-take not only between the developed countries and the LDC's, but also amongst the LDC's themselves, and between them and other developing countries. Issues of restrictions affecting agricultural trade - a major factor in the failure at Cancun - need re-addressing; but non-agricultural trade issues must also feature in the negotiations as that could make some acceptable policy compromises possible. This paper investigates, in a computable-general-equilibrium (CGE) framework, the welfare impacts on selected developed and developing country groupings of several scenarios of trade liberalisation that are likely to enhance agricultural and non-agricultural trade flows within the LDC's, and between them and other developing countries. The scenarios will involve experimentation with selected commodities that are of special export interest to LDC's to identify some modalities of trade liberalisation and policy reciprocity, that are more likely to be acceptable to all parties.International Relations/Trade,

Anaesthetic management of patient with Ellis Van Creveld syndrome

A known case of Ellis-Van Creveld Syndrome was scheduled for emergency repair of obstructed paraumblical hernia. We describe the anaesthetic management of the case with special reference to the classic physical and physiological manifestations of this syndrome present in our patient

Simplified Vehicle-Bridge Interaction for Medium to Long-span Bridges Subject to Random Traffic Load

This study introduces a simplified model for bridge-vehicle interaction for medium- to long-span bridges subject to random traffic loads. Previous studies have focused on calculating the exact response of the vehicle or the bridge based on an interaction force derived from the compatibility between two systems. This process requires multiple iterations per time step per vehicle until the compatibility is reached. When a network of vehicles is considered, the compatibility equation turns to a system of coupled equations which dramatically increases the complexity of the convergence process. In this study, we simplify the problem into two sub-problems that are decoupled: (a) a bridge subject to random Gaussian excitation, and (b) individual sensing agents that are subject to a linear superposition of the bridge response and the road profile roughness. The study provides sufficient evidence to confirm the simulation approach is valid with a minimal error when the bridge span is medium to long, and the spatio-temporal load pattern can be modeled as random Gaussian. Quantitatively, the proposed approach is over 1,000 times more computationally efficient when compared to the conventional approach for a 500 m long bridge, with response prediction errors below $0.1\%$.Comment: submitted to the Journal of Civil Structural Health Monitorin